Sunday, December 28, 2014

On the desk in front of me sit three
small stacks of pictures: tree elves, Jadeites, and humans. The pictures of
tree elves and Jadeites are photocopied from books that I took home with me;
you don’t need a card to check out books at the Grand Greenwood Library, but
you do need to have them signed out at the front desk. The librarian refused to
sign the books out to me. She just sat there gawking as if I was an unusual
animal (and to her, I suppose I was) and clasped the books protectively as if I
might have been thinking about stealing or burning them. Apple Blossom had to
sign them out for me.

Tree elves and Jadeites have the
same skin tones from milk-white to rosy pink, small builds with petite frames,
pointed ears (though the tree elves’ ears are slightly larger and more pointed),
and clean, unblemished faces. The Jadeites’ hair ranges in shades from golden
blonde to greenish blue, and the tree elves sport the more conventional colors
of blonde, brown, and auburn red. I had learned that prolonged access and
exposure to the jade essences caused the change in hair color, as well as a
slightly greenish tinge on the skin of Jadeites that did not exist in the tree
elves. The tree elves’ eyes are nearly universally blue, and the Jadeites’ eyes
are nearly universally green. The eyes of a Jadeite are large and round like
perfectly cut gems, while the eyes of a tree elf are smaller and more teardrop
or almond shaped.

In comparison to humans, both
Jadeites and tree elves have two arms, two legs, five fingers and toes, heads
of hair, and distinctly human facial features. Jadeites and tree elves are
short, with willowy builds—if you can compare the build of a human to a tree
trunk, then you can compare the build of a Jadeite or a tree elf to a flower
stalk. The rounded five fingers of a Jadeite compare more to a human’s than the
gangly, pencil-shaped digits of a tree elf. The arms and legs of a tree elf are
slightly longer than those of a Jadeite, their feet are pointy and oddly diamond-shaped,
and their hair is stringy and unkempt in comparison to the more well-kept
hairstyles of Jadeites. The Jadeites and tree elves bear the same heart-shaped
faces, though the tree elves’ chins are pointed slightly.

The Jadeites are certainly closer in
appearance to humans. It doesn’t surprise me, considering the tree elves were
older and less evolved and still likely flaunted the characteristics of their
dryad ancestors. But Jadeites have our hair, fingers, toes, noses, eyes,
mouths, teeth, and language capabilities. Somehow, I don’t feel that is a
coincidence…

7:15 PM

The books explained why Jadeites
fear a creature so similar to themselves. It isn’t our appearance that
frightens them, but our tendency to be horrid to anything that isn’t one of us.
I certainly know better than to go
rampaging through a forest full of elves, beating and destroying everything in
sight. None of the people I know would ever behave so despicably (or at least,
I hope not!). But the Jadeites in
general possess a sort of childlike naivety that leaves them vulnerable to the
other, much less desirable sort of people. I always knew that such a sort of
people existed, hopefully far, far away from my little speck of the world. But
I never dreamed that there could have been enough of them to taint the
Jadeites’ perception of the entire human race for decades. And yes, it has been
decades—centuries, even. It wasn’t only recent texts and children’s picture
books that depicted us in such ways. There were plenty of old books written
over a hundred years ago in that library, featuring the “tan-skin beasts” in
all their infamy. There has to be a reason, hasn’t there? What could have
possibly provoked these hostilities? As much as the Jadeites swear by it, I
refuse to believe that there was no provocation at all—it would go against
everything I was taught about human nature. Could the Jadeites have tainted the
relationship with humans, or was it the other way around? Did it begin with the
Jadeites, or with the tree elves before them, or even longer ago? Could there
have been a war, a misunderstanding turned into a conflict, a communication
gone horribly wrong? What kind of royal family did the Jadeites have when it
began? Did it have anything at all to do with the striking similarities?

There is just so much that I don’t
know, and I feel as though that maze full of books couldn’t possibly have all
of the answers.

10:17 PM

This is the first time I have
visited the magnolia archway at night. The Grand Elder Guardian is absent from
his web, which glistens in the starlight along with the magnolia leaves. The
white blossoms that had adorned the trees the day I met Apple Blossom are long
gone. It’s rather dull, but a peaceful place for thinking when there are too
many things on the mind.

My tag says that I am the fifth
human to come by the Greenwood, and Apple Blossom had told me on that first
day that only one of the other four had returned, and they had been deterred by
the Grand Elder Guardian. What if they, like me, had not been deterred? What if
they had gotten through, or ran into Apple Blossom? Would they have treated her
with kindness and become her friend, or would they have…no, I refuse to think
about that.

An awful thought has been lingering
in my mind all day, and I know I won’t get any sleep until I get it out. What
if publishing this diary the way I want to ends up attracting the kind of
people to the Greenwood that the Jadeites—and I—dread? What if
publicizing the story of the Greenwood to a wide audience ends up contributing to
its destruction? Of course I would try to pass it off as fiction, but that
wouldn’t stop people—especially children—from getting curious. How many
children waited for their Hogwarts letters or spent Christmas Eve waiting for
the Polar Express to show up at their doors? How many people traveled to the
nothing-special city of Forks, Washington simply because Twilight told them that Bella and Edward live there? How many
tourists swarm forests, lakes, parks, and villages around the world, hoping to
catch a glimpse of some mythical creature that dwells there according to a
story? Even the people who know that stories are only stories, and don’t really
believe (or at least tell themselves that they don’t) tend to take part in
order to experience some of the magic. The fact of the matter is that I can
pass it off as fiction all I want, but it won’t stop anybody who’s really keen
on traipsing through the forest hunting for Jadeites.

My diary contains a truly wonderful
book, one that I’ve already read over and over and enjoyed every word of. It
just fascinates me how much of a real, viable story this diary turned out to be
long before that was my intention. But still, I am beginning to think that it is
best if I never publish it. As the only human entrusted with the Jadeites’
friendship and their information, it’s my duty to protect them from any
“tan-skin beasts.” Their protection is so much more important than anything I
could get from publishing their story, so this is how it is going to be.

Sunday, December 7, 2014

(I have no clue why the font has shrunk. It's the normal font size I always use, I have it set to normal, I've tried bolding it, resizing it...nothing works. Sorry about that...) The
Diary of Miss Aidyn Hall: author, mentor, researcher

July
27

7:00 PM

The Picture Books

When I met up with Apple Blossom at
the magnolia archway, the disappointment in her eyes told me that things were
not going to go the way I’d planned. “Uh-oh,” I said. “What happened?”

“I was only able to get one person
to join our research group,” Apple Blossom said with a disappointed sigh.

“Oh! That’s not so bad!” I was relieved
that she had gotten any volunteers at all. “Just one person is better than none!
So who is our generous volunteer?” Right then, Wildflower sprung out from
behind a holly bush, holding on tightly to her treasured diary. How had I not
noticed her there before? “It’s me!” she cried, bouncing on her toes. “It’s me,
it’s me!” She ran over to me and stood at my feet like a soldier reporting for
duty, smiling hopefully. I smiled back. “Somehow I knew that you would join us,”
I said. “Welcome to our research team, Miss Wildflower!” I was happy that she
would be working with us and I was proud of her for volunteering, but at the
same time I was disappointed that she was the only one who had. She was only
five years old and her abilities were very limited. The unfortunate truth was
that there just wouldn’t be much for her to do, and the only assignments I
could think of for her were meager pittances. Still, I was willing to take what
I could get—after all, we could have gotten zero volunteers. But things were
certainly not going to go as I had planned.

“Wildflower, dear,” I said, “is it
okay if Apple Blossom and I talk privately for just a moment?”

“What does that mean?” asked
Wildflower.

“It means that I would like to tell
her something that’s only for her to hear,” I told her. “Will you let me do
that? You can write in your diary for a moment while I do.”

“Okay.” Wildflower returned to the holly bush
to sit down beside it and write. I gave her an approving smile and pulled Apple
Blossom aside. “What is she able to do?” I asked.

“She can’t really do anything,” Apple Blossom
said concernedly. “I could teach her a little bit about note-taking,” I
suggested. “She can’t really write yet, but she knows how to formulate ideas.” But
Apple Blossom shook her head. “You’ve got to help me change the others’ minds,”
she said. “That’s your job for today.”

“They’re frightened,” said Apple
Blossom. “That’s the only reason they won’t do it.”

“They’re frightened of me?” I asked, alarmed.

“Oh, no, not of you!” said Apple
Blossom. “They’re frightened of what they might find out.”

“I can understand that,” I said,
“but I have a feeling that learning the truth would make them feel better about
it.”

Apple Blossom gave me a hard look
then, a look that meant, “Aidyn, you’re wrong.” The truth was that they didn’t
want to know the truth. The truth might shatter the perceptions they had that
had become facts so long before now. If the Jadeites and the humans had any
connection, they didn’t want to know about it. Jadeites were Jadeites and humans
were humans, and if anything at all indicated that they were anything more than
two phenomenally different creatures, they didn’t want to hear it. Nothing would change their minds. Apple
Blossom had given me an impossible task. “Apple Blossom,” I said, “I
respectfully request that you give me a different job for today. What if I were
to be your research assistant?”

“What would you do then?” asked
Apple Blossom.

“I’ll find the books you need,” I
explained, “and I’ll take notes, write down page numbers and titles, make
citations…things like that.”

“Are you sure we can’t convince the
others to help?” she asked with a sigh.

“The small tasks,” I said. “She can
put things away and carry books and papers and things.”

Apple Blossom looked very unsure
about it all, but she finally said, “All right,” with a sort of uneasy shrug. I
waved Wildflower over, and the three of us set out for the Grand Greenwood
Library. The soldiers met with us at the bridge, and that was something
Wildflower was afraid of. She whimpered and hid behind my legs, and I could
feel her trembling. They had kept out of sight the day Apple Blossom and her
friends had gone off in search of the “shekrumseh,” but today they towered over
Wildflower—a few of them were human sized—and their armor gleamed in the sun
like the exoskeletons of giant green beetles. I found it to be in incredibly
poor taste for these soldiers to clank around behind us when we had a young
child with us. Of course she was
going to be scared! They had kept out of sight before, and they should keep out
of sight again. But, of course, they weren’t going anywhere, and I had only
myself to blame for that. I held out my hand for Wildflower, and when she took
it I could feel her shaking. “It’s all right, Wildflower,” I said, giving her
hand a squeeze. She moved closer to me, and every so often she glanced over her
shoulder at the soldiers, keeping an eye on them as they tried to do for me.

The Grand Greenwood Library gave us
a welcome release from the soldiers’ all-seeing eyes. They must have picked up
on how much they had frightened Wildflower, as they didn’t even bother to peer in
at us through the windows (which would have set her off in a bad, bad way). We
set down our equipment: my messenger bag, notebooks, bookmarks, and pencil
case, Apple Blossom’s leafy green notebooks and matching tree-bark pencils, and
Wildflower’s diary and pen. I asked Apple Blossom, “Can you name some of the
picture books about humans?” It was as good a place to start as any.

“I can name one,” Wildflower piped
up.

“Go ahead, Wildflower.”

“The
Beast on Two Legs,” she said, and I had to laugh. It sounded like a cheesy B-movie
from the 1940s. “All right,” I said through my giggles, “what about you, Apple
Blossom?”

“Well…” She looked up at the
ceiling. “There’s The Menace of the
Outskirts, Humans: Creatures of Destruction, The Tan-Skin Beasts…” I wrote
all of these down as she listed them off, but I couldn’t help but chuckle to
myself as I did. They were the cheesiest-sounding book titles I had ever heard.
I mean, “Tan-Skin Beasts?” Honestly? Well,
these five titles told me that to the Jadeites, we humans really were nothing but
unpredictable, menacing, destructive beasts. And yet, I wasn’t treated like a
beast at all. They certainly didn’t trust me, and they didn’t view me as a
friend or a welcome guest (with the exception of Apple Blossom and Wildflower,
of course). My sticky fingers and insatiable curiosity hadn’t done anything to
help that. But the Jadeites were amicable enough to me. Wildflower’s parents
obviously approved of their daughter’s association with me enough to keep
allowing it. The king and queen allowed me to continue visiting with Apple
Blossom, so long as it was done under the watchful eyes of the soldiers. Even
with my restrictions, I was given a considerable amount of the Greenwood to explore and experience. It was certainly
not the way that most would treat a dangerous beast. I knew that I had Apple
Blossom to thank for most of this, and I felt a surge of warmth and gratitude
for my friend.

“That’s all that I need for now,” I
told Apple Blossom. “Can you tell me where to find these books?”

“Well, do you want fiction, or…”
Apple Blossom stopped herself from finishing that sentence. “You know, it’s
probably best if I just show you. Come on.” She got up from her chair and
headed off into the maze of books. “Come on, Wildflower,” I said. “I need you
to carry some books for me.” She appeared at my side almost instantly.

Two of the books were found in the
same section, a section full of brightly illustrated picture books with boldly
written titles in large print. They were the kind of books that you would find
in the children’s section of any library. “This is The Tan-Skin Beasts,” said Apple Blossom, handing a book to me. I
looked over the book’s cover. The title was written in an urgent shade of red
and hovered directly over a detailed illustration of three people: a man, a
woman, and a child. Their facial expressions were blank, and except for the
swords and spears they were carrying (even the child held a weapon), they
seemed perfectly ordinary. Their skin was the same creamy color as my own, but
in comparison to the Jadeites who were all pearl-pink and paper-white, it could
be considered tan. Whoever had illustrated this book must have seen humans
before. I had expected us to be depicted as some kind of exaggerated horror
movie monsters.

After some more searching, we found The Beast on Two Legs. This cover
featured a towering man with biceps big enough to rip a tree in half. In one
hand he held a lit match and in the other he carried an axe. In the background
was a forest that had been set ablaze. “I don’t know anyone who looks like
this,” I said as I handed both books to Wildflower. Now that I had seen two
different interpretations of humans (both labeled “beasts”), I was more curious
than ever to see exactly what it was that made us so scary.

We returned to our table, Wildflower
dutifully set the books down, and I opened up The Tan-Skin Beasts. “Do you need me to read it for you?” Apple
Blossom asked. “Not right now,” I answered. “I just want to look at the
pictures.” I could tell that she didn’t want to read me any book that called me
a beast.

Those pictures didn’t tell me
anything about a possible connection between Jadeites and humans, but it did
tell me everything about “the tan-skin beasts”; there were full-color
illustrations of humans partaking in such acts as gleefully cutting down trees,
burning up forests, and brutally attacking Jadeites. There was a picture of two
grown men kicking around and pulling the hair of two little Jadeite girls.
There was a small group of Jadeites looking mournfully out on an area of forest
that had been charred and littered with plastic bottles and balled up papers.
There was a human woman clubbing a Jadeite woman over the head, a sadistic
smile painted on her face. This is what Jadeites expected of humans. These were
the monsters that Jadeite children were terrified of—and until I quickly proved
otherwise, they feared that I was one of them. I was so trusted in comparison
to the rest of my kind because I was a human and yet not one of these monsters.
And the slightest hint of evidence that I was not as angelically good as I led
on—the thievery of five jade stones—resulted in a league of soldiers keeping
sharp eyes out for any signs of escalation.

But this isn’t what bothered me. What
bothered me was that things like this had actually happened. They had to have
happened, in order to give the authors of books like these any material. It was
nearly universally accepted by the Jadeites that humans were fearsome monsters,
and in order for that to become a universal constant that was documented and
depicted in books, some humans had to have made their way into Jadeite
Greenwoods and acted like fearsome monsters.

Some Greenwoods had been completely
trashed, or even burned, by careless people.

Some people had encountered some
Jadeites and responded by attacking and brandishing weapons at them.

Some people had found it appropriate
to beat a Jadeite child.

For some reason, it had never
occurred to me that there must have been a reason for the Jadeites to fear
humans the way that they did. It had never occurred to me that humans had done something to establish their place
as the bogeymen of the Jadeites. Or maybe it had occurred to me, and I just
didn’t want to believe it. Humans are bullies to anyone who doesn’t fit into
their own limited little ideas of the world.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Every
evening after ten-o-clock, I heard the sound. It was actually a collection of
many sounds playing all at once: metallic clangs like pots and pans rattling in
the wind, dissonant jangling like cowbells tied to a post, the gentle tingle of
swaying windchimes, and more besides. It all started up at the same time, at
exactly ten-o-clock PM, and it diminished to silence at the crack of dawn. At
first, it annoyed me. It kept me awake at night and I hated it. I thought it
had been the next-door neighbors having a little too much late-night fun, and I
was all set to go over there and give them a piece of my mind. But when I left
to go confront them, I heard that the sound was coming from the woods behind my
house.

Those woods were nothing to me but
some mildly-interesting background scenery absolutely teeming with bugs. I
couldn’t stand anything with more than four legs. The sound of a buzzing bee
would have me running for an exit. Butterflies and moths were not quite so
pretty to me, and even the sight of a tiny fly would send me into a minor
panic. The fact that those woods were filled to the brim with every sort of
creepy-crawlie imaginable was enough to make me avoid them at all costs, and no
amount of racket could change my mind about that. So the sound played on, every
night of the summer, and over time it became more of a comfort than a nuisance.
Instead of keeping me awake, it soothed me to sleep, and its presence in a
dream indicated that the dream would be a pleasant one.

I had thought that the sound would
end with the summer, like the sound of the crickets and katydids and the smell
of burgers from my neighbor’s barbecue grill. But as the crisp chill of the fall evenings
settled in, the sound continued on. By now it had me itching with a curiosity
as annoying as the collection of mosquito bites I had added to over the summer,
but the ladybugs, dragonflies, and small flies that were still around were
enough to keep it suppressed. Every so often, though, I would bring it up to my
neighbors when we got a chance to talk—“Have you heard that weird noise that
comes out of the woods at night? It sounds like bells ringing, or things
clattering, or…something.” The responses were varied: Mr. Joe Roberts told me
that there were way too many sounds resonating from the inside of his three-kid
house to think about any that came from outside. Joyce Applebee said that she
and her husband had heard it, but they didn’t give it too much thought—it was
probably a noisy pine hick, or else some teenagers having too much fun. Ralph
Wilson said that the racket was becoming insufferable, and if it didn’t stop
very soon he would find a way to make it stop. I guess I was the only one who found
it to be pleasant.

Fall turned to winter, the sound
played on through the evenings, and the welcome disappearance of the bugs
opened up an opportunity. The time had finally come for me to squash my
curiosity and discover the source of the sound! Remembering what Ralph Wilson
had said, I thought about asking whoever it was to quiet down a bit (but
certainly not stop), but I mainly wanted to thank them for the lovely racket
that kept me company through so many wonderful nights. So one afternoon after
work, I made my way down to the woods. For the most part, the woods were wild.
Vines—some covered in thorns—twisted and tangled around the trunks of trees and
the branches of shrubs. The brown carpet of fallen leaves was dotted
haphazardly with shiny green bushes. Every so often a root, shrub, or wayward
branch would trip me up. It was a place with no sense of order or reason, and
there was no sound except for the occasional bird call or the rustling of a
squirrel searching for remaining acorns. Bugs were no longer an issue, but I
worried about snakes. I hoped that the cold had driven them away along with the
bugs.

After walking in the wilds, I came
upon a much more orderly dirt road leading off into the deep woods. My sense of
adventure outweighed my unease and I began the trek. The flapping and chirping
of the occasional bird, the quiet whispering of the light winter breezes, and
my feet crunching through the dead leaves and fallen pine needles made for a
beautiful melody against the eerie silence. The haphazard arrangement of trees
and shrubs began to morph into neat rows of Christmas cedars and box-shaped
bushes. I thought that I must have been entering somebody’s property. My heart
fluttered as I wondered if it would be a nice somebody, who would take “Sorry,
I got a little lost” for an answer.

On and on went this clean-cut path,
with no further hints of civilization or ownership. I froze up at the sight of
a small, winged thing zipping away from one of the boxy bushes. “It’s too cold
for bugs, it’s too cold for bugs,” I repeated as I forced myself to continue on
in spite of my shaking legs. It was just fine until I caught sight of another
one, and another, and another still, and I was forced to admit that it was not
my imagination.

I screamed and swatted aimlessly at
the air in front of me, bringing my hand down on a tiny, beating wing. I screamed
again, closed my eyes, and took off running without knowing or caring where I
was headed. The silence of the woods was broken by tiny, mousy screeches in the
air. Oh god, I thought, these bugs can scream! Screeching bugs
was where I drew the line. I fell to my knees and curled up with my face buried
in my hands. I trembled and I whimpered, and when I felt a wing brush my face I
screamed again. But then I was aware that something was softly patting my
cheek. I opened my eyes and beheld a bright, fresh, childish little face with
rose-petal lips curled up in a decidedly-friendly smile. This girlish face was
held in place by a doll-shaped arrangement of bright white light, and the only
other discernible features were the iridescent, rapidly-beating wings on its
back.

I, like most people, had heard my
fair share of fairy stories. I knew about Tinkerbell and Thumbelina and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I also
knew that fairy stories were just that—stories. They are nice to hear, and
often very enchanting to read, but you never expect to actually experience one.
If you do happen to experience one, no matter how vivid an experience it is,
you just can’t bring yourself to believe that it’s really happening. You think
you’re dreaming, or your imagination is running wild, or you hit your head just
a little too hard after tripping over a root. When I was confronted with this
little light creature, smiling prettily at me and patting me on my cheek, I
thought of all three of these possibilities. I certainly didn’t think that she
was real!

The little fairy perched on my
shoulder like an obedient bird, and said in a high, chirping voice, “All
right?” I hesitated for a moment—it was just so strange to be in a dream and know I was in a dream—and then I simply
nodded. Others came into view, looking at me the way a parent might look at a
child who has fallen over and scraped their knee. There were the angelic faces
of men, women, and children, all attached to these winged bodies made of light.
“I’m all right,” I told them. “I was just scared.”

“Scared?” The little fairy tilted
her head at me the way that a curious animal might. She didn’t seem to
understand the word, or else she didn’t understand what there was to be scared
of. Then she smiled again and patted my head. “No scared!” she chirped in a
tone that hinted at assurance. “Not scary! Nice!” I didn’t know what to say, so
I smiled and nodded.

“Your name?” she asked me.

“Molly,” I told her, “and yours?”

She looked at me quizzically while the
others happily chattered and chanted, “Moll-ee, Moll-ee!” like they really
enjoyed the sound of it. I’d never thought of my name as anything special, so
hearing them make such a big deal out of it would have given me a serious case
of the warm-fuzzies if I hadn’t thought it was a dream. The little fairy
confusedly responded to my question with, “My what?”

“Your name,” I elaborated. “What is your name?”

“Oh! Aiki!” she cried cheerfully,
clapping her hands. “Aiki, Aiki!” She was so downright adorable that I wished she
was big enough for me to pinch her cheeks. “It’s nice to meet you, Aiki,” I
told her. She fluttered off of my shoulder then and gestured enthusiastically to
me. “Come, come!” she cried, and the others followed suit; they fluttered off
ahead of us, crying, “Come, come, come!” They all sounded so urgent about it
that I rose to my feet and obeyed, following them farther into the deep woods
and away from any hint of civilized society. At any moment, I’ll snap out of it and they’ll all disappear, I
thought, so I’d better enjoy my time in a
fairy story while I can!

The path finally ended, and there
stood an old, dilapidated Victorian-style house, painted a faded brown that had
once been yellow. Ivy vines and stalks of Virginia creepers grew up the walls and along the
shutters of the windows, and an overgrown patch of weeds now stood where a
garden might have been. Illuminating this house were at least a hundred—but
likely more—of the little light fairies. They chattered like birds as they flew
in and out of the windows, climbed the sprawling ivy vines, weaved inbetween
the weeds in the old garden, and floated happily above the slate-colored
rooftop. These were the sort of perpetually happy creatures only encountered in
dreams, books, and children’s television.

The exterior decoration of the house was a
colorful smorgasbord of objects with no discernible order, reason, or purpose.
Pots and pans of all sizes lined the olive-green porch steps. Bells of all
shapes hung from bushes and small trees. The garden of weeds was laden with
brightly-colored glass globes positioned on short stalks. Jingle-bell shells
tied on strings hung from the window shutters. Windchimes hanging from the
awning greeted me with their cheery tingle.

That’s when I realized: noisemakers! The house was filled to the
brim with noisemakers of every shape, size, sound, and type, and it was the combination
of all of these noisemakers playing in unison that resulted in the mysterious
nightly sound that I had come out here to discover. I had discovered it, and at
the same time I had come to the understanding that this wasn’t a dream or my
imagination. This was all real, and these were real fairies! In that moment, I
experienced the unease that anybody would feel when something happens to change
their perception of the world. It wasn’t a bad change—in fact, it was a
wonderful one! How uplifting it was to know that there really were hidden,
out-of-the-way places of the world where fairies really existed! But at the
same time, it was a change that would force me to think of the world in a
different way from now on. I sat down in my place and allowed myself some time
to properly take it all in.

Little Aiki fluttered over to me
then and asked, “All right, Moll-ee?” I nodded and smiled a genuine smile. “I’m
all right.”

“Home!” Aiki chirped, and spread her
arms in a wide gesture to the entire house and grounds. “Yes,” I said, “I see. I
like your home. Aiki, do you like to make music?”

“Moo-sic!” Aiki happily clapped her
hands. “Yes, moo-sic! Come, come!” She motioned for me to follow her, and I
obliged. She led me around to the side of the house, where a little band of
fairies was playing a chasing game that looked quite fun. They paused and waved
when they saw me, and I waved back.

Positioned on an old post was a
small triangle—small, but certainly not fairy sized. Aiki reached for the
stick, held it like a baseball bat in both of her tiny hands, and gave the
triangle a whack. Ding! I was able to
recognize that sound from the nightly cacophonies. Now I knew the identity of
its little player. Ding! Ding! Ding! She
giggled like she was being tickled. Other fairies, including the four playing
chase, looked on with laughter and chirped merrily like songbirds. They began
to hop and sway in time to the melodic little sounds that Aiki called
“moo-sic.” Aiki suddenly stopped whacking and held the stick out to me. “Moll-ee,
ting-ting-ting!” she cried.

“Oh? You want me to play it?”

“Yes! Play ting-ting-ting!” The
others assisted her in egging me on; “Ting, ting, ting!” I found myself
giggling just like them. “All right,” I said. “I’ll play.” I knelt down and
tapped the triangle one, two, three, four times—ding, ding, ding, ding—paused, then a fifth and a sixth. I tried to
create a melody of my own that would get them to dance and sway the way that Aiki’s
staccato whacking had done. But as it
turned out, they would dance to any sound in any order or rhythm (or lack
thereof). The sound itself was music to them. Their joyful steps inspired me to
tap faster, louder, then slower and softer, fast, loud, slow, soft, alternating
and letting them follow along. One of them added jingle bells to the little song.
Another one provided the clinking of glasses. Others, clapped, and others sang
in bell-like voices that instantly brought Christmas angels to mind. The joy of
leading this merry band set me into laughter, and the perpetual happiness of
these childlike fairy creatures spread like fire and was just as warm. My song
ended when I ran out of ways to continue it, though if I had my way I would
have sat there and played the “ting-ting-ting” forever. I stood up and bowed,
and the fairies applauded me so raucously that I felt like the leading lady of
a Broadway production. Aiki started up a cry of “Moll-ee, Moll-ee!” and I was
cheered and kissed and nuzzled and given holly boughs to weave in my hair. The
eventual return to my own world was nothing but an afterthought. All I wanted
was to stay, to befriend these creatures and see everything that this wonderful
house had to offer.

As the sun began to set, I was led
inside and served a dinner of milk, a strange, gamey meat, and wrinkled orange
fruits that tasted like candies. Aiki hadn’t left my side since my little
concert. She smiled brightly when I accepted her small shares of her
candy-fruits. She was agreeable to being patted on the head with the tips of my
fingers as she sheltered herself in my coat pocket. She showed me through the
rooms of the house, which were old, dusty, and overgrown with ivy, moss, and
even mushrooms in some places. We played hide and seek using the many
hidey-holes and crannies that were scattered throughout the house. She trusted
me with the location of a secret room that none of the others had found yet.
Every so often, she took it upon herself to entertain me with an energetic
dance full of leaps and twirls. We sat out on the front porch together to blow
dandelions and look up at the starry winter sky. It didn’t take long at all for
Aiki to become my friend, and I relished in the form of quiet conversation we
had that we could both understand.

At the fairy sound house, the hours
blended into one-another, so there was no way to tell when one ended and the
next began. But at one of the darkest hours of the night, every fairy suddenly left
the house all at once and began to scamper around outside. I followed them and found
that they were positioning themselves at the noisemakers—three or four fairies
per noisemaker in most cases. At long last, the time had come for the nightly
sound to play! I found a place to sit and waited eagerly for the start of the
show. I saw that Aiki had taken her place at the triangle—the
“ting-ting-ting”—along with two other girls. A bell sounded off, and then
another. The jingle-bells joined in, then a windchime was stirred, then the
glass globes were tapped, and then every inch of the house blared with sound. It
was not simply background noise, it was a performance. It was music in its
simplest and most natural form, without all the fluff of conductors and
note-reading. It was a large-scale version of the kind of music that a child
produces with his first toy xylophone—no real order, no real reason, but so
happy and innocent and pleasant to hear. I had already made up my mind that
they were never going to stop, Ralph Wilson be damned. They could play at their
house of music any way they wanted to, and they kept themselves so hidden and
out of the way of human civilization that no one else would bother to come out
here and find them.

This live performance brought to mind
all of the summer nights I had spent lying in bed and listening to the same
sound intermingle with the crickets and frogs. I thought of the dreams of fairy
parties and singing dryads that the sound had inspired in me throughout those
nights. I thought of autumn breezes, early winter winds, and bird songs at the
crack of dawn. I felt my eyes growing heavy, and the next thing I knew, my head
was resting on the soft grass. As I drifted off, I became aware that the sound
of the “ting-ting-ting” was one of the loudest of the whole menagerie.

I awoke at sunrise, and felt
delightfully warm and comfortable in spite of the cold. All of the fairies
slept peacefully beside their instruments. Careful not to disturb or step on
any of them, I padded over to where Aiki lay with the triangle stick still in
her hands. As I approached, she stirred and opened one eye and then the other.
She smiled rosily when she saw that it was me.

“Goodbye, Aiki,” I said, and leaned
down to kiss her forehead. She snuggled against my hand and looked up at me like
an animal that had suddenly been wounded. “Moll-ee…” I could feel her little
body quivering like she was ready to cry. “I’ll come back,” I told her, “I
promise. I’ll see you all again very soon.” That satisfied her. She kissed my
fingertips and curled up to go back to sleep, and I rose to my feet and headed
for the path leading home. I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay here and
play with the fairies and listen to their nightly songs forever. But I belonged
to my world, where I had duties and responsibilities. I had the incredible
feeling, however, that I could belong to the fairy sound house as well.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Wildflower
loved her diary as much as I thought she would. She opened and closed the front
cover over and over again, beholding the image of the regal peacock and the extravagantly-decorated
pages. “Do you know what bird that is?” I asked her. When she shook her head, I
said, “It’s called a peacock, and the peacock is going to guard your writing
for you. You can write anything you want to the peacock, and he’ll be sure to
listen and keep it safe.”

“Thank you, Aidyn!” Wildflower cried, giving
the diary a fond hug. “Thank you…I love you, Aidyn!” I glanced at her mother
and saw that she smiled at me in approval. My heart melted.

My
job today was to pick blue and yellow flowers for Apple Blossom to put in
several little nosegays. Crystalline’s birthday was approaching, and Apple
Blossom had given herself the task of decorating for the party. Blue and
yellow, she told me, are Crystalline’s favorite colors, and so every decoration
from the flowers to the ribbons to the banner followed suit. “Tell Crystalline
that I wish her a happy birthday,” I said.

Apple
Blossom sighed. “I wish you could come to the party.”

“I
wish I could too,” I said, “but you don’t need to have me around to have fun.
And you can tell me all about it afterwards.”

As
I picked and made idle conversation with Apple Blossom—about the party, her
gift for Crystalline (a blue and yellow jeweled necklace, with beads shaped
like little frogs), what Apple Blossom had been up to lately, and other
subjects—a private corner of my mind still wondered how the Jadeites were so
fluent in the English language. I figured now was as good a time to ask as any.

Apple Blossom’s eyes widened and she let out a
little gasp. “Why, I had been wondering all this time how you knew our language!”

“It’s
called the English language,” I told her.

“We
call it the Common language,” she replied, “but I think that what you call it
makes it sound prettier—English.” She
said the word a few times, as if savoring the sound.

“The
Common language,” I repeated. “Do all Jadeites speak it, then?”

“I
wouldn’t know,” said Apple Blossom. “I’ve never met any other Jadeites outside
of my Greenwood.”

“A
princess must excel at handling interpersonal relationships with the outside
world,” I told her seriously. “It’s essential to becoming a good queen.”

“I
suppose my mother and father take care of all that,” said Apple Blossom, and
then I spotted a roadblock: there was no way that I would be able get any
information out of the king and queen. They were still entirely closed off to
me, and my little sticky-fingers act hadn’t done a thing to help that. Still, I
wasn’t daunted. “Do you have a library anywhere?” I asked.

Apple
Blossom nodded. “There’s the Grand Greenwood Library, and there’s also the
royal family’s private collection. Which one would you prefer?”

This
was perfect! “Would I be allowed into your private library?” I asked, though I
was sure I already knew the answer. As I expected, Apple Blossom said, “You are
if you’re with me.”

“Will
you let me go home and get my notepad first?” I asked. “I like to write down
the things I find when I’m in a library.” She nodded. One of these days I’ll
remember to bring it with me whenever I go into the Greenwood. When
Apple Blossom finished tying the last cream-colored ribbon on the last nosegay,
she stood up and said, “All right, I’m ready to go now. Thank you so much for
gathering the flowers for me, Aidyn.”

“It
was no problem. I had a lot of fun collecting them,” I said truthfully. Then,
after she dropped the nosegays off with a servant woman, the two of us headed
back to the magnolia archway. The soldiers trailed behind us until we reached
the bridge. I ran home to fetch my notepad, and returned to find Apple Blossom
waiting patiently for me, swaying back and forth on her toes. She skipped along
behind me as I made my way back to the bridge. We met up with the soldiers
again, and Apple Blossom said, “I am taking Aidyn to see the royal literary
archives.”

“I’m
sorry, Princess, but that will not be allowed,” said one of the soldiers.”

“It
will be allowed,” Apple Blossom insisted. “I am allowing it!”

“We
cannot allow an outsider to access the royal literary archives, especially not
a human. There is too much sensitive
information located within. You may only
bring her to the Grand Greenwood Library. The royal archives are off limits.”

Apple
Blossom must have forgotten that I still had a reputation as a thief. She must
also have forgotten that she isn’t a queen yet, because she put her hands on
her hips, pushed out her chin, and said with a queenly scowl, “I order you to
allow Aidyn into the royal literary archives.”

“The
orders of your mother and father surpass yours, I’m afraid,” said the soldier.
“It is not to be permitted, and that’s the end of that!” Apple Blossom opened
her mouth to say something else, but I spoke up: “Then perhaps you can tell me
where else I can get the information I’m looking for?”

“Why
would you need any information?” the
soldier asked rather nastily. I could tell that Apple Blossom didn’t appreciate
his tone, but before she could say anything I rushed on: “Well, if a human is
going to be frolicking around in your world at all, wouldn’t you prefer that
human to be appropriately knowledgeable about it, so that they may show the
proper respects? Or would you rather have a completely ignorant outsider just
bumbling around the place?”

“I’d
rather ensure that certain information remains safely in our hands,” said the
stubborn soldier, “and doesn’t just get passed along to any outsider we decide
to invite in. I ask you again, what kind of information would you possibly need?”

“Well,
as you can hear right now, the two of us happen to speak the same language,” I
said. “I’d like to read up on why that’s the case—the history and origins of
the Jadeite language, and its relation to the languages of outsiders. Now, how
dangerous could information like that really be?”

“You
don’t need to get into the royal archives to find information like that,” said
the soldier, softening a little. “The Grand Greenwood should be just fine. If
it isn’t, then I don’t really know what to tell you.” “That will be fine,” I
conceded, “so long as I can find what I’m looking for. Thank you for clearing
all of that up, sir.” I nodded to him and took Apple Blossom’s hand. “If it
isn’t,” Apple Blossom said to the soldier, “then we’ll have to go into the royal archives. I want to know too!”

I
looked at her. “You do?” She nodded. “Why do you want to know?” I asked.

“I
just do,” she answered, but her eyes darted from place to place. There was
something that she wasn’t telling me, and I think the reason for that was that
she didn’t want the soldiers to hear. I nodded to show that I understood. “Show
me the way to the library, then.”

“It’s
this way,” she said, letting go of my hand. “Follow me!” She darted ahead like
a fox; she wanted to get away from the soldiers. I did my best to keep up with
her, calling “Hey! Slow down!” to keep the soldiers from growing suspicious. I
knew she wouldn’t really slow down. We ran and ran until we made it out of the
soldiers’ sight. Apple Blossom took both of my hands, stood up on tiptoe, and
whispered to me. “I can’t tell you everything until we get to the library,” she
said. “It will be easier for us to talk privately then. But…” She looked around
to make sure that the soldiers had not yet caught up. “I’ve always wondered
if…if perhaps the Jadeites and humans have some sort of connection.” “What kind of connection?” I asked, but she wouldn’t
tell me more. The sound of heavy footsteps indicated that the soldiers were
catching up to us. She took my hand again, and we walked the rest of the way to
the library. She was silent, and I decided to follow suit. The soldiers’
emerald-green helmets hid whatever reaction they may have had to Apple
Blossom’s impulsive little run.

I
expected the Grand Greenwood Library to be a towering, sprawling compound
carved out of the same jade stone as the palace. What it really was, though,
was a tall but very plain box carved out of thick tree bark. Moss grew on the
roof and at the little cubbyholes that were meant to be windows. Fat grey
mushrooms grew on both sides of the bark door. It seemed anything but grand,
but still I was filled with anticipation. My plentiful experience with
libraries told me that the tiniest, dinkiest, plainest libraries so often held
the most wonderful collections of books you could find. Apple Blossom led me
inside and the soldiers took their places by the entrance. It was a relief to
me that they wouldn’t be following us inside, even if they would be peering
into the windows to keep tabs on me.

I
was right! The Grand Greenwood Library was one amazing wall-to-wall maze of
books of every size, color, and thickness; books bound in snakeskin dyed red
and green and blue, books with covers made from polished tree bark, books tied
together with jade-colored ribbons, tiny books written on the delicate petals
of flowers. It was paradise, and my only disappointment was that they were all
written in a language that I couldn’t read. “You’re going to have to be my
translator,” I told Apple Blossom.

“I
will,” she said, “but I want us to talk first.” She took my hand and led me over
to a table. We sat down, and she leaned in to whisper to me. “I’ve always
wondered if the Jadeites and humans were connected somehow,” she said, “but all
I knew about humans was what I learned from the stories: that they were tall,
thick-bodied creatures with two big legs and two long arms and hair on the tops
of their heads like we have. I’ve seen several drawings and illustrations that
went along with those stories, and they showed that humans have five long fingers
(she wiggled her fingers then), wear clothes made out of colored fabrics, they have
two coin-sized eyes, long, dark hair, and two pink, rosebud-shaped lips—those
drawings looked so much like larger, dark-haired Jadeites!

“And
then I met you, Aidyn. I had been longing to meet a human, because I wanted to
see what they were really like, and if we were as similar as the pictures made
us out to be. The taggers told my father that they had found and tagged a human
near the gates, and I was so excited to think that I had finally gotten my
wish! At the same time, I was scared, because I knew the stories and I didn’t
know you would turn out to be so kind and friendly. In fact, I never could have
anticipated that! But then I finally got to meet you, and you were just as
similar to my people as I had thought! Not only that, but you knew our language!
I knew then that I had to be right; the humans are Jadeites really are
connected!” She folded her arms on the table. “The fact that you feel the same
way means we have similar minds, too, and that’s another sign that we’re
connected. So, now we’re going to be a team. Together, the two of us are going
to find out just what that connection is!”

So
there was the real reason Apple Blossom was so attached to me. The two of us
are alike, much more alike than any of her people would be willing to admit,
and Apple Blossom had looked beyond the preconceived notions of the Jadeites to
be able to see that. I had seen it too, and it had made me wonder, but it
wasn’t until now that the wonder had increased to the point that I just had to know. I have to know!

“When
do we start?” I asked.

“We
start right now!”

Apple
Blossom led me through the maze of books and read off the titles of any that
sounded important: “The Tree Elf Alphabet” (there were at least ten of these,
but we only took three), “Tree Elves, Their Origins, and Their Ways,” “The Era
of the Early Jadeites,” “A Tree Elf Dictionary,” and more. We returned to the
table with ever-growing piles of books, and I realized that there was just no
way that two of us to do this on our own. “What we need,” I said, as I stared
down the mini mountain of books, “is a good research team.”

“What
do you mean?” asked Apple Blossom.

“It
would take eons to read all of these books by ourselves,” I said, “and that’s
without all the note-taking, fact-checking, collecting, investigating, sorting,
filing, reviewing, revising, and further reading. Research isn’t just reading
books, Apple Blossom. Researching a topic takes a lot of work, time, and
patience, especially if it’s a topic that’s never really been covered before,
or is covered very rarely.”

“Oh.”
Apple Blossom rested her cheek against the palm of her hand. “We’ve really got
our work cut out for us, then.”

“Yes
we do,” I said. “That’s why we need to organize a group, so we can split the
work up and give everybody a share of tasks to do.” I tapped my pen against my
chin. “Do you think that your friends would want to help us out?”

“Of
course they would!” Apple Blossom chirped, jumping out of her seat (though
still remembering to use her quiet library voice). “They would love to! In
fact, we can go ask them right now!”

“We
can ask them tomorrow,” I said. “For now, let’s put all these books back where
we found them.”

“I’d
like to take a few of them,” said Apple Blossom. “I want to start doing some
reading on my own.”

“Suit
yourself.” I gathered up an armful.

“Do
I have to take notes?” she asked.

“You
don’t have to,” I told her, “but it would help you remember what you learned
and what you thought was most important.”

She
nodded and selected four books from the mini mountain, which was then promptly
dismantled and returned to the shelves. Unfortunately, we couldn’t remember the
exact shelf locations for every book. I hope it wasn’t too much trouble for the
librarians to rearrange them all.

We
stayed at the library for the rest of the day, while Apple Blossom picked out
some choice Jadeite myths, fables, and fairy tales to read to me (the story of
the wish-granting “shekrumseh,” which means “little wish giver” in the tree elf
language, was one of them). I noticed that she had chosen to leave out any
stories about humans…

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

The
fact that I have been forgiven does not make me any less of a traitor and
thief. Though both Chicory and Apple Blossom have moved on, I have not. Neither
have the king and queen, if the soldiers who still meet me at the bridge are
any indication. I felt that I was let off too easily by Chicory, but at the
same time, is it really being let off
easy if you are given no chance to redeem yourself? Maybe it is to someone who
has no interest in redeeming themselves, but I wanted to redeem myself. I
wanted to pay off my debt to Jadeite society, but no one else in the Greenwood would
trust me enough to let me work for them. That left only Apple Blossom, and it
was appropriate, seeing as she had been the one hurt the most. Chicory hadn’t
fretted over the jade stones, but the breach of trust had hit Apple Blossom
hard.

This
morning, when I met up with Apple Blossom at the magnolia archway, I said,
“Apple Blossom, I want you to give me a job.”

“What
kind of job?” she asked inquisitively.

“Any
job,” I told her. “Cleaning, errand-running, serving work…I’m going to pay for
my wrongdoing with honest work—it’s what we humans usually do when we’ve done
something wrong. Just think of some work for me to do, and I’ll do it.”

“Wouldn’t
that make you my slave?” she asked doubtfully.

I
asked, “Do slaves volunteer to be slaves?”

“They
do,” said Apple Blossom, “unless they are sentenced to it as punishment for
some crime.”

“Well,
that’s exactly what I’m doing!” I told her. “I’m sentencing myself to become
your slave as punishment for my theft and betrayal.”

“It
wasn’t that horrible of a betrayal.” She sure bounces back quickly!

“That
isn’t the point,” I told her. “Come on, Apple Blossom, please work with me
here. I’m trying to redeem myself, both in your eyes and the eyes of your
people, and if anything is going to help that along it’s being taken into the
service of the beloved princess.”

“All
right,” Apple Blossom reluctantly agreed. “But I’m not going to treat you as a
slave. You can do things like picking flowers to put in my hair or pinning my
brooch to my collar—nothing servantlike, like cleaning and waiting. How is
that?”

“Sounds
good,” I said. I held my hand out for us to shake on it, but she looked at me
confusedly. “Shaking hands is what humans do when they seal a deal,” I
explained.

“Jadeites
bow low to one-another,” she told me, so we did that instead. “I have one
request, though, if I am allowed,” I said.

“You’re
allowed,” said Apple Blossom. “What do you need?”

“Will
you let me run home and get my notepad and diary?” I asked. If I’m going to be
working for the princess of the Jadeites, I’m going to be documenting it at
every chance I get. She allowed me to do so, and somehow I knew that she would.
I’ve got my diary, notepad, and tag and I’m all set and ready to go to work.

1:22 PM

I
have been given my first assignment, and it’s quite a far cry from pinning
brooches and picking flowers: I must look after Wildflower while Apple Blossom
and Holly Berry search for the “shekrumseh” in the deep woods (a “shekrumseh” is
apparently the Jadeite and tree elf equivalent of a genie, though from the
description they gave me it sounds more like the deku sprout from Legend of
Zelda). Wildflower is too little to go into the deep woods, even though she so
desperately wanted to do just that. “I want to see the shekrumseh!” she wailed,
wrapping her little arms around Apple Blossom’s waist. “Ple-e-ease let me see the shekrumseh!”

“Wildflower,
we don’t even know if there really is a shekrumseh,” Holly Berry reminded her.

“There
is!” she hollered. “I want to see him!”

Gently,
Apple Blossom laid her hand on Wildflower’s head. “Wildflower, I promise you
that if we find the shekrumseh, we’ll catch him and bring him back here so that
you can have a wish too. But right now, you have to stay here with Aidyn and be
good.”

“Why
can’t I go with you?” Wildflower demanded.

“Because,”
said Apple Blossom, “there are lots of snakes in the deep woods. Holly Berry and
I are too big for a snake to eat, but you’re so little that he could swallow
you up in one gulp!” Wildflower fell silent, and her eyes grew wide. “So that’s
why you’re going to stay here with Aidyn,” Apple Blossom continued, “and she
will protect you from those big, mean snakes!” With that, she took both of
Wildflower’s hands and led her over to me. For a moment, I worried that she
would react with distrust or even fear. I hadn’t thought much about how what
had happened had affected her, or if she even knew about it at all. So when she
wrapped her little arms around me, looked up at me with her bright blue eyes,
and smiled, I was overjoyed! One day, she will unfortunately learn that even
friends can be wrong and that trust is lost as soon as it is gained. But right
now, at five years old, she is free from such realities and I wish to keep it
that way. I made up my mind that when I was around her I would make believe
that I had done nothing at all, because in her eyes I had not.

Wildflower
is not a demanding charge at all. She’s quiet, well-behaved, and perfectly
content to sit and twirl a flower in her hands or play with a beetle she found
on a leaf. When I wanted some time to write, I told her to sit right beside me
and gave her a page out of my notepad and a pen for her to draw with. She
didn’t have any problem with that. I just glanced over at her to discover that
she’s imitating me, right down to my tight-lipped expression of concentration!
Her little notepad page is filled to the brim with scribbles.

I
asked Wildflower what she was writing and she told me, “I’m writing the same
thing you’re writing.”

“Oh,
are you?” I said, chuckling a little at the mental image. She nodded. “You
know,” I said, “a writer is supposed to come up with her own material.”

“What
does that mean?”

“It
means that you can’t just copy what someone else writes,” I told her. “You have
to write about what you want to write
about, not what someone else wants to write about.”

“What
if I want to write about what someone
else wants to write about?” she asked inquisitively.

“Then
you have to find a way to make it your own,” I said.

She’s
too young to understand. She went back to her work with a sort of shrug, and I
left her to it.

“You
won’t be able to read the language,” I told her. “Besides, it’s rude to read
someone’s writing without asking them!”

Her
eyes widened. “Is it?”

“It
sure is,” I said.

“Oh.”
Her face fell, and her whole body slumped as if recoiling into a turtle shell.
“I’m sorry.”

“It’s
okay,” I said, patting her on the shoulder. “I guess I should tell you what I’m
writing anyway, since it’s about you.”

“Is
it about me?” she cried, bouncing on my knee. “What does it say? What does it
say?” I gently sat her down and said, “It says that you are a very good, quiet,
and well-behaved girl, and it isn’t difficult at all for me to look after you.”
She beamed. “I also wrote a little bit about the beetle you played with.”

“Did
you say it was a black beetle?” she asked.

“I
didn’t write much about it. I also…”

“I
could write a lot about the black beetle,” she interrupted.

“Oh,
could you?” I tore off a blank diary page and handed it to her. “Why don’t you
do that now?”

Now
she’s filled over half of the page with her “writing” about the black beetle.

After
Wildflower managed to fill the whole page, she tugged at my sleeve and asked me
to listen to what she had “written.” “I’ll do something even better,” I told
her. “I’ll write it all down in my diary, so it will be there forever.”

“I’m not
exactly copying it,” I said, “because I’m not saying that I came up with it.
I’ll give you a byline—that means that I’ll write your name above the writing, so
that anyone who might get to read it will know that it’s your writing and your
ideas.”

That
satisfied her. Here is what she “wrote”:

My Friend the Black Beetle

by Wildflower

Today I met
a big, black beetle. He was on a big, green leaf. I like him. He’s pretty and
he shines in the sun. I picked him up and he walked on my hand. He didn’t run
away, so I think he liked walking on my hand. I touched his shell. I thought it
would feel like metal, but it didn’t feel like metal. It was soft.

A beetle is
a good friend. He’s friendly and funny and loyal and he likes me. I asked him
his name and he didn’t tell me, so I guess he doesn’t have a name. I will name
him Shiny, or Shell, or Leaf, or Friend, or Blackie. I like Blackie, so that’s
his name.

I need to
get this girl her own diary.

3:45 PM

The
girls never did find the “shekrumseh,” which considerably disappointed
Wildflower, but she quickly lightened up when I told her I had a surprise for
her.

About Me

I'm Star Nova, and I like to tell stories. This blog used to be more topical, but then just became a place where I could easily hold my stories. I have several short stories and two big works in progress, as well as some old crap and some pending revisions OF some old crap.
I write in order to share how I see the world, from my own perspective. If you're here, you're probably here from Tumblr or Twitter. I hope you like my stories. And if you don't, I hope you at least read them before you decide that. (: